


To Hohenheim

by stellarparallax



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-25
Updated: 2017-04-25
Packaged: 2018-10-23 22:47:38
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,863
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10728855
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stellarparallax/pseuds/stellarparallax
Summary: Dear, do you know what flashbulb memories are? What am I saying – of course you do. You’ve had so much time to learn. You had intelligence, knowledge and wisdom that I could only dream of attaining a fraction of. You probably know more about it than I do, but time is slowing down for me right now, and I feel like explaining it to you anyway.(In which Trisha is recalling her memories of Hohenheim as she's about to die.)





	To Hohenheim

You told me once that you may never have the privilege of knowing what it’s like to die. I couldn’t tell you before, but I’m hoping I can somehow reach you now. Perhaps it’s naïve of me to think that there’s a God out there that will bend the rules of life and death just so we can share this moment together, but I wish so much for it to be true.

 

Dear, do you know what flashbulb memories are? What am I saying – of course you do. You’ve had so much time to learn. You had intelligence, knowledge and wisdom that I could only dream of attaining a fraction of. You probably know more about it than I do, but time is slowing down for me right now, and I feel like explaining it to you anyway. Flashbulb memories are vivid memories during the moment when a significant event was witnessed or heard of by the person. According to research, the subjects are often highly confident in their recounts of these memories, but even these memories are not invulnerable to faults.

 

If you can hear me right now, you’re surely wondering why I’m rambling about this to you. I have a point to make, I promise.

 

The last time I saw you, I felt a part of my heart succumb to necrosis. For some reason, I knew even then that it would be the last time I saw you. Every time you left my side I worried that it would be the last time, but that time I was sure. I’m not sure how. I hadn’t shown any signs of illness then. I wanted to plead with you to stay with me until my last breath, but I couldn’t. Your research would be critical if the world was to be saved, but more importantly it was important to you. Suddenly, it didn’t matter how much I wanted you to stay or how afraid I was of dying. We – the boys and I – are important to you. Protecting us was your priority. I knew that much.

 

I remember the Rockbells being summoned by the military to support the war effort in Ishval. Winry used to come by our house every single day for six months and just watch me putting up laundry. She missed her parents, but she also missed having someone around. I didn’t tell her that I was secretly jealous of her parents. No matter what happened in Ishval, they would have each other to rely on. No matter what happened wherever you went, you wouldn’t have me.

 

Ed and Al are making such great progress in their studies. When you found out that they were reading your old journals, you were beaming with pride. When you realised that it meant that they may someday go down the road to sin, you wanted to burn the books. You almost finished the job, but I stopped you. You left the next morning. I always wondered if it was because of what I did.

 

You were crying in the only family photograph that we took with all of us in frame. Do you remember the talk we had the night before? I told you that Pinako was coming over with the new camera that she bought, and you threatened to climb up a tree and hide there if we so much as suggested that you appeared in the photograph. I said that I would chop down that tree and drag you back home. You said that you weren’t worth of being part of our family since you left us all the time. You said that most people would call you a monster for choosing to be absent for your sons’ developmental milestones in favour of your mission. I never told you this, but the same people probably thought that the Fuhrer was a monster for abandoning his inauguration ceremony to be with his wife while she was hospitalised after a miscarriage. They said that he wasn’t fit to run a country with such behaviour. My point is that both of you had your priorities and you chose as you saw fit. You loved your children as much as any man possibly could, maybe even more than that. So please, stop thinking that you are devoid of humanity.

 

I heard what you said when Alphonse was born. You thought that I was asleep, but I wasn’t. You said that you were glad that the two of them would have each other if anything happened to me. I always resented you for taking yourself out of the picture.

 

Edward finally said his first word after months of babbling. It was “papa”. I heard you crying in his nursery that night. He was fast asleep and he didn’t hear you, but I was there. “I don’t deserve this, Edward,” you said, “You need so much more than a man who can just make things with his hands.” I couldn’t contain my anger when you saw me later that night. You asked why I got so upset with you over seemingly nothing. That was why.

 

When Edward was born, you refused to touch him for months. Your abstinence didn’t last long. Edward learnt how to crawl and he crawled onto your lap when you fell asleep on the couch one afternoon. It was inevitable, really. He’d heard so much about his amazing father. Who could blame him for wanting to be close to him? He fell off when you stirred awake, and you caught him just before he landed on the floor. You had no qualms about holding him since.

 

You cried when I got pregnant. You said something about you still being capable of doing human things. I had no idea what you meant by that at the time. You were always human to me. I told you as much and you cried even more. Come to think of it, you’re lucky that I’m not writing a biography for you. You cry a lot. They may revoke your man-card from you. Heck, they may even give it to me for having to put up with it.

 

You know I’m just teasing you. I never thought of you as any less of a man for shedding a few tears. You were always a sensitive person, and the world did everything it could to break you. Yet, here you are, outliving me still. You have no idea how proud I am to be your wife.

 

Do you remember how you didn’t talk to me for a week following our first date? You later told me that it was because you were overwhelmed with guilt for having fallen in love with me. You said that you couldn’t bear to be around me in the state that you were. Pinako had to go to the hospital for a routine check-up and she asked you to accompany her because she always felt light-headed after a blood test. We ended up meeting in the hallway to the clinic she was headed to. It was the first time you saw me in my work uniform. I remember blushing so hard that I thought my body was on fire.

 

It was also the first time you saw me covered in bruises. I tried to cover them up with make-up but I was never very good at beauty things, and you always had a keen eye for detail. You pulled me aside and demanded to know who did that to me. I told you. You made me head home immediately and pack my things. I said that I was only a month’s salary from having enough to leave home, but you refused to let me stay in that hell any longer.

 

My mother almost killed me when she caught me in the act. She failed because you were there, up in a tree, looking straight into my room for any signs of violence. As soon as she started to hit me, you crashed right into the second floor window and defended me. We left within the next hour after that. That day, I thought you’d always be by my side. Funny how the world has its way of ruining the best thing that a person can have – faith.

 

I was ten years-old when I first met you at the edge of a bonfire. I asked you to dance because your long hair reminded me of the doctor that tried so hard to save my father’s life after the traffic accident that fatally wounded him. I never saw that doctor since. My dancing with you was supposed to be my way of thanking him for all that he’d done for me.

 

Later that night, I told my mother about you. I described your appearance in detail, telling her that I knew that you were familiar. She told me that I didn’t remember the long hair from the hospital, I remembered it at the police station. The man who crashed into my father had refused to compensate us for our loss. I remembered his long blonde hair, but somehow I remembered him as somebody else. Even knowing that you actually reminded me of someone I swore to hate, I still wanted to dance with you.

 

That’s the thing about memories – all these moments were important to me, but I may never know if I remember them accurately. I may never know if you truly loved me or I just wished for it so hard that I mistook your gentleness for affection. All I knew was that I loved you and you protected me. Even though you rarely came back to me after our sons were born, you made every moment with me count. Even if that isn’t love, I don’t care anymore.

 

I never told you this, but when I was younger I wanted to be an alchemist. I didn’t have the talent for it, but I kept studying it. Perhaps that was why I stopped you from stopping Ed and Al from doing the same. From everything I learnt, I found that they are two things in this world that alchemy cannot grant – life and love. I immediately started studying to be a nurse after that.

 

As patients died one-by-one, my desire to save lives waivered. It seemed that I was failing more than I was succeeding. When I got home, I wanted to take my own life whenever my mother took her frustration and anger out of me. I started to question whether or not I could even achieve bringing life and love to this world.

 

Funny how the person who ended up affirming my conviction was a man of alchemy. We built a home with a foundation of life and love, and that was more important to me than anything I could ever transmute with alchemy.

 

I’m not worried about leaving Ed and Al behind because they still have you. You brought Pinako into our lives and I know that she’ll always watch over them. They have someone else to rely on because of you. You thread the bonds between the fabrics of our lives. A monster wouldn’t have been able to achieve that.

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! Thanks for reading my fic!
> 
> Feel free to leave comments and any constructive criticism that you may have. I'd love to read it!


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